


I Know You

by Seven_alight



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animals Love Bucky, But Also Needs a White Knight, Drug Use, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Im talkin these motherfuckers won't touch pinkies till chapter 1000, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Slow Burn, Steve and Bucky don't know eachother, Steve's a Fucking White Knight, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-31 00:47:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seven_alight/pseuds/Seven_alight
Summary: They called him The Winter Soldier, a ghost, a master of evasion, and a myth according to many.Steven Grant Rodgers, referred to exclusively as Captain America by 97% of the population, had the unfortunate opportunity of running into this "ghost" twice in the past three days. Steve has sworn to do whatever it takes to protect the world and its inhabitants. But a crash landing in the Canadian wilderness reveals that the soldier may be more than the mindless killing machine the world seems to think he is.





	1. No Name

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a universe where Hydra was never part of S.H.E.I.L.D and Bucky and Steve are still both from the 40s, but never knew each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Very brief mention of suicidal thoughts

They called him The Winter Soldier, a ghost, a master of evasion, and a myth according to many. There had been exactly four confirmed sighting of him over the past 70 year, but the legend of him was prolific among certain communities, manly those peripherally involved with Hydra. But his existence was never once spoken of by any actual Hydra agents, leading to the widespread belief that he was merely a scare tactic, a boogieman of sorts to scare the children into brushing their teeth and the low level goons into blind obedience and loyalty. And of course any rational person wouldn’t believe that the man who played a role in the Kennedy assassination would decades later pull up his depends, grab his walker, and blow up a train in Central Asia, like the stories said. Of course there was the possibility that it was a code name shared by many, but honestly no one really cared enough to be coming up with hypotheses about something so obviously false. That was until six weeks ago when the number of his sightings tripled.

It seemed that hydra was getting frantic, intelligence agencies from all over the world were closing in on them and hiding one of their most dangerous weapons was no longer a priority. They were breaking out the big guns in an obvious last ditch effort to save themselves, which was good news for the world as a whole, but very inconvenient for the people The Winter Soldier came in contact with. Steven Grant Rodgers, referred to exclusively as Captain America by 97% of the population, had this unfortunate opportunity twice within the past three days. And from the way things had been going, he’d bet money that it was going to be three times in the next ten minutes or so.

They had been systematically conducting raids on locations identified by a large data dump acquired by SHEILD’s hackers the week prior. It appeared that The Winter Soldier was working protection detail, fending off authorities at key locations long enough for the most important equipment and personnel to be evacuated or destroyed. There was definitely a mole in SHIELD somewhere though because Hydra kept knowing exactly when they were coming. The location he was in route to now looked to be the biggest one yet, so a scuffle with the only other known super soldier in existence seemed to be in Steve’s immediate future. Despite the fact that he was clearly a murderous Nazi scumbag, Steve couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of solidarity with the man. Well maybe solidarity wasn’t the word, but he was definitely interested in having a word with the soldier if they ever captured him alive.

“Estimated time to location: 3 minutes,” came Tony’s voice over the com unit, “we’re going to start slowing down.”

A chorus of “copys” came from Steve, Natasha, and Rhodes who were each flying separate jets.

They had taken the fastest planes available to them in the hopes of reaching the base before the mole could give Hydra too much of a heads up. This meant taking single seater jets that’s Steve would’ve had no hope of piloting if not for the autopilot function. He guessed they were a model not yet available to the general military though because he had never seen anything like ‘em. His uncultured ass had been quickly informed by Tony that they were state of the art technology created by Stark Industries. He planned on asking why they couldn’t all ride it one because, despite the fact that there was only a single pilot seat, there was plenty of room in the rest of the aircraft. Steve thought better of it though considering he had already made an ass of himself in front of Tony once that day.

“Heads up guys, looks like we’ve got some company,” Rhodes said, “approaching from the the south east.”

“Hold your fire, they may be friendlies,” Natasha wisely contributed. There were multiple agencies informed of the location at the same time and it was entirely possible they would end up shooting some poor Air force airman right out of the sky.

“It’s defiantly a U.S. military aircraft, but they aren’t responding to communication attempts,” Tony noted, “keep an eye on-”

Just then there was a deafening boom that seemed to come from every direction and Steve felt his jet shake violently before the autopilot restabilized the craft.

“Fuck! Steve are you ok?” Tony shouted, “what the hell was that?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine for now, but whatever it was blew a big ass hole in the back of the plane!”

“Ok! Ok, Steve your going to be ok!” Tony was shrieking, not really making Steve feel any better about the situation. “You just need to make an emergency landing at the Hector International airport. Do you see the digital map on the-“

But the rest of the sentence was cut off when an arm reached around Steve’s throat and knocked out his earpiece. Instinctively Steve began clawing at it when his oxygen was cut off and it took him a moment longer than he would like to admit to realize that it was metal.

 _Fucking seriously?!_ Steve thought then craned his head back to confirm that, yes, it was in fact The Winter Soldier attempting to squeeze the life out of him. He had actually jumped out of one plane and into another tens of thousands of feet above the ground. Steve had to give him props, the guy had some balls.

As he was fervently attempting to kill him with one arm the soldier calmly reached out with the other and lightly taped a button on the control panel. There was a shuuu sound that must have been a blast door closing because Steve no longer heard the deafening sound of wind rushing though the plane.

“Your death is not ideal, but within mission parameters. Quit resisting and I will not be required to kill you.”

It was the first time Steve had heard the soldier speak and it struck him how dead the voice sounded. There was absolutely no inflection, no shakiness from having jumped out a fucking plane ten seconds ago, he wasn’t even breathing hard. It sounded almost like the voice of a robot, but much more terrifying. Steve had never heard anything like it.

He reached back and grabbed the soldier than threw him with just enough force to dent the newly closed blast door, but not enough to bust another hole in the plane.

Frantically he grabbed the com mic and shouted, “It’s him! It’s the soldier! Continue on the mission, I’ll distract him till you guys finish it!”

He had just enough time to slam on a random location on the map far away from the Hydra warehouse for the autopilot to fly too before the soldier’s arm was back around his throat.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?” Steve choked out, exasperated. Then he repeated the exact move he did earlier, this time denting the door a couple feet to the left. The soldier didn’t even grunt and just got back up without hesitation and ran at Rodgers again. And for a second Steve considered the fact that that he might actually be a robot to have not even flinched from the impact.

They grappled like that for what could have been minutes or decades for all the headway they were making, each taking turns hurling the other as hard as they could into any available surface, neither gaining an edge. Steve vaguely registered the plane’s AI repeatedly giving warnings littered with technical jargon and and phrases like “forced emergency landing” mixed in. He would have been worried, but currently he had bigger problems to deal with. Mainly the 200 odd pounds of unstoppable super assassin hell bent on crushing his skull in or die trying. Beneath the pain of what had to be multiple cracked ribs Steve registered the sensation of the aircraft lowering. He tuned in long enough to hear “Strap in and prepare for emer-” before the soldier smashed him into the control panel and the voice cut out. He rolled them over and pressed down on the soldier’s trachea as he realized that they were, in fact, descending at and alarming rate. He took a moment to pray that the autopilot was intact and able to actually land before hoisting the soldier above his head and slamming him into the ground. They fought for a few more minutes and Steve new they had to be getting close to the ground by now. His suspicions were confirmed only seconds later when there was a jarring impact that flung his assailant off him and across plane. He prayed for a second time thanking God that by some miracle he wasn’t dead and, and this might be the best part, The Winter Soldier appeared to be unconscious.

Steve stood and surveyed the wreckage that was the inside of the jet before he felt freezing water begin to soak through his shoes.

 _No. NO!_ Not again. Hadn’t he crash landed a plane into frozen bodies of water enough for one lifetime? He tried to concentrate on his breathing, but couldn’t stop the flashbacks from coming. The seatbelt crushing his collar bone, his eardrums bursting as the pressure grew to unbearable limits as the craft sunk further and further into the sea, and eventually the searing pain of his body, unable to hold his breath any longer, gasping water directly into his lungs. His legs buckled underneath him and he collapsed to the floor. This only made the memories worse though because now, instead of just his feet, his shins, knees, and hands were submerged in the liquid.

“ _It’s not the same. It’s not the same_ ,” he repeated to himself over and over again, though in his head or out loud he couldn’t tell.

Firstly, this plane appeared to be able to float, since no more that an inch or so of water had permeated the craft. Also, once he got the common sense enough to look out the window, he realized they were only about 100ft from shore. And lastly, and this was the most important one, he wasn’t trapped, confined by suffocating restraints that he was unable to rip though in his severely injured state.

After what could have been ten seconds or ten minutes of breathing exercises Steve rose and approached the control panel. His com unit was nowhere in sight and the on board radio was smashed into about 100 or so pieces. Steve kicked out the front window and surveyed the surrounding area for any sign of life. Their mission had been located in podunk North Dakota so Steve figured that they had to be somewhere in Canada by now. How long had they been flying? Fifteen minutes maybe? He tried to do some quick calculations to approximate where they were but realized he had no idea how fast they were going. According to Tony's insistent bragging the jets had a max speed of 4,500m/h, though Steve thinks he would’ve noticed if they had broken the sound barrier. So 15 minutes or so at less than 770m/h put them at about 200 miles off course, with a gigantic margin of error. Meaning Steve had absolutely no clue where they were. He had total confidence in Tony though, who probably had trackers, or satellites, or some other crazy future technology that could find them. The most important thing now was to find some shelter before the sun set. He was in luck because there was what appeared to be a hunting cabin right off the edge of the lake. And, judging by the state of the driveway and surrounding roads that must be under the snow somewhere, it was uninhabited.

He looked back at the soldier crumpled in the corner and the little voice in the back of his head that whispered “just run over those pedestrians” or “throw this baby like a football” told him to leave the man, to let let him perishing in the the freezing depths. But no, Steve wasn’t the type to kill someone unless he had no other choice, despite what SHEILD may try and convince him to do. That wasn’t his job, he wasn’t an assassin and this man probably had tons of useful information to share anyways. With much protest from his aching ribs he hoisted the soldier into a fireman’s carry and headed for the cabin.

 

\------------

 

Cold. Cold and pain and wet. And…and shackles. Shackles meant Hydra, meant the end of a mission and reentry into cryo, or being wiped. It did not remember the end of the mission, but memory wasn’t something The Asset could ever really count on. It peeled the eyelids open despite the fact that it knew there wasn’t ever anything good on the other side. Confusion swamped it. Even more than the perpetual confusion that always plagued it, like a part of the brain shrieking “why, Why, WHY?” that it always suppressed because questions brought punishment. This new confusion was brought about by the strange environment. It was unlike any Hydra holding facility it had seen before. Wooden walls and a crackling fire instead of metal cells and endless screams, the smell of pine instead of rotting death that invaded the senses. The shackles on it’s wrists weren’t connected to The Chair, but to a heavy chain that ran though a hole in the wall out beyond where it could see. And the strangest thing of all was the man huddled by the fire, appearing to be just as sopping wet and cold as The Asset. When he turned his head the face of Steven Rodgers, alias Captain America, was illuminated by the flickering light.

“CAPTURE OR NEUTRALIZE,” Howled the voice of the handler in its head.

The Asset scrambled to its feet only to collapse back onto the bed.

“Stop struggling,” the target commanded, “Your leg is fractured and I’ve only just finished setting it.”

Captured? IT had been captured? The Asset had not been originally programed for anything other than covert mission and there was no protocol for capture. No protocol, NO PROTOCAL. It listened for the voice of the handler that constantly screamed orders in the mind, but for once he was silent.

“You’re chained to that jet out there that probably weighs about 50,000lbs so I suggest you just sit your ass down and hang tight till my backup comes to detain you. If you resist I _will_ kill you.”

The target was attempting to sound threatening, but no voice could come close to that of the handler's in terms of intimidation. The fact that he thought death was even a valid threat was comical. If it wasn’t for the voice of the handler screaming in its head not to, The Asset would have offed itself a long time ago.

Think! It had to think. But it wasn’t programed to think. In fact, it was programed for the exact opposite. The Asset never imagined there’d come a day when it wished to hear that high pitched nasally wail commanding its every move. But now that there was only deafening silence in the mind it wanted it back. _Orders?_ it asked, but not aloud, into the empty abyss of the head and no one responded. The right ring finger began to tick like it used too before they had shoehorned the other voice fully into the mind. The Asset grabbed it firmly with the mechanical arm to stop the tremors. They hadn’t like twitches, twitching meant punishment. But it wasn’t supposed to remember that and they hated remembering even more than they hated twitching. But it couldn’t stop remembering as easily as it could stop twitching. _SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!_ It begged that evil part of the brain that was always remembering, feeling, whispering to it and getting The Asset punished.

The target rose and approached. Once he was within arms reach Iosif’s voice came back in full force, “CAPTURE OR NEUTRALIZE”. And fuck! Now The Asset was remembering names. _Stop!_ it pleaded into the internal void.

The mechanical arm rose of its own volition and reached for the targets throat. The man’s reflexes were quick though and he leaned back the few inches needed to be out of reach.

“Come on man why you gotta be like that?” he said, the bad cop routine of moments prior vanished, “even if you kill me and somehow get out of those chains, we’re in the middle of nowhere, you’ll freeze to death or be captured by my people before you get anywhere.”

The detail in which the target spoke to The Asset was confusing and unnecessary. It did not get explanations, it got orders. With Iosif going silent again The Asset did exactly what the voice commanded: absolutely nothing.

“Fine, be like that,” the target said in a way that made it clear he wasn’t at all surprised by The Asset’s lack of response. “Just know that in the condition you are in you would have a very, very hard time taking me out.” He got up and strode back towards the fire, then ,after a slight hesitation, finished with, “also, I’m a very light sleeper,” and laid down for a nap.

 

\---------------

 

Steve woke hours later, surprisingly without fingers wrapped around his throat. A quick glace at his prisoner showed that he had wedged himself into a corner and that, although he wasn’t sleeping, he didn’t seem like he was planning on moving around anytime soon. The man was eerily silent. Well not exactly silent, but the mechanical whir of his arm drowned out the sounds of heartbeats and breathing that Steve had grown accustomed to hearing from normal people. Without those noises it made the soldier sound almost dead and a morbid part of Steve’s brain wondered how long the arm would continue to buzz once he had perished. Steve shrugged off the thought. He tried not to let his mind wander to those dark places that it tended to go to ever since the first day he landed in Germany and saw his own bullet blow a mans face off.

He let himself be disappointed by the fact that Tony hadn’t come to pick him up yet, but guessed he should really thank his lucky stars. The cabin appeared to be a seasonal hunting lodge and was fully stocked with fire wood, food, and water enough to last a few weeks. At least a few weeks if he ate like a normal person and not a super soldier. There were even some books and board games laying around. Steve thought of sitting around playing Yahtzee with one of the FBI’S most wanted terrorists and chucked to himself a bit.

He dumped a couple cans of broccoli cheddar soup into a pot and began cooking it over the fire that had miraculously not burned out yet. After throwing a few more logs on and digging around for the proper cutlery he dished out two piping hot serving of the stuff and headed for the cot his prisoner was sitting on.

“You might want to let it cool a bit,” he offered before setting the bowl and a glass of water down on the floor. The soldier eyes had tracked his every movement and he predictably offered no response. It felt kind of awkward being stuck in a room with a guy that wouldn’t even utter a single syllable to him, but Steve also thought that silence maybe preferred over whatever Nazi propaganda bullshit was likely to spill out if his mouth in its absence. After his meal and a few rounds of solitaire Steve went back to sleeping in front of the fire, desperately hoping his cloths would be dried out by the next time he awoke.

 

\--------------

 

In the morning Steve was disappointed to find out that not only were his socks still a little damp, but Stark was _still_ not there to pick him up. He thought of going back out to the jet to try and fiddle around with the remnants of the radio, but quickly tossed out that plan when he got a look at the thermometer hanging outside the door. It read -20 °C. Steve really didn’t know what that would be in Fahrenheit, but figured it translated to about cold enough to freeze your dick off. With that he decided that outdoor adventures would be limited to only absolutely necessary excursions. And honestly with his technological aptitude the likelihood of him figuring anything out was about zero to none.

His captive was seated in the exact position he was 6 hours ago and, unless the guy was real particular about making his bed, it appeared he hadn’t slept. The glass of water was empty, but the soup hadn’t been touched. Maybe the guy was doing a hunger strike, but Steve also figured that he might just not like broccoli. He chose a can of tomato soups, because he had literally never met another living soul that didn’t like tomato soup, and heated it up for breakfast.

After he played room service for the soldier he reheated the untouched soup from the night before for his own breakfast, figuring that they didn’t really have the luxury of wasting food. It wasn’t until he had practically licked the bowl clean that he realized that it 100% definitely could have been poisoned and he was probably the dumbest super hero to have ever lived. He had patted down the guy pretty good and thought he got all the weapons off him, but who knew what kind of hidey holes he could have hidden in like the seam of his underwear or something. Steve shrugged figuring that there wasn’t anything he could do about it at this point, save for making himself throw up and he wasn’t about to do that. He had thrown up enough for about ten lifetimes by the age of 13 and absolutely hated the feeling. He’d legitimately would rather take his chances with the possible poison than go through that shit again.

The soldier didn’t touch the tomato soup, or either of the other two meals Steve provided for him that day. He also didn’t speak, move, or even breath for all Steve could tell. He kind of reminded Steve of the Queen’s guards which put the image of The Winter Soldier in one of those big fluffy hats in his mind. It was all he could do to not burst out laughing. That evening he moved his solitaire game to right in front of the cot.

After a few rounds he asked, “want to play some poker or something,” more out of curiosity for the answer than anything.

Of course there came no response to Steve’s question. It was interesting though, instead of tracking Steve’s hand like a predator about to pounce the soldier attention visibly shifted to the cards Steve was playing with. He wondered if card games were a past time Hydra agents indulged in.

  
“I can teach you how to play if you want,” he offered, though not really sure why he was being so hospitable to a Nazi.

It was strange, there was something about the man that just gave off these “I’m a big softie” vibes. Of course Steve knew this wasn’t the case, he'd personally seen the man shoot two shield operatives point blank, and seen video footage of countless other attacks. But for some reason the idea of this guy, currently huddled up in the corner of the bed making himself as small as possible and taking tentative, curious glances at the card games Steve was playing, just didn’t mesh with what he knew The Winter Soldier to be.

 

\----------------

  
Steve woke late into the night to a rhythmic thumping sound coming from across the cabin. Despite his earlier claims, he actually was quite a heavy sleeper so the noise had to have been going on for some time to have roused him. When he finally blinked the sleep from his eyes it took a while to register what he was seeing. The soldier was sitting in his spot on the cot repeatedly bashing his head against the wall. Steve leapt to his feet and crossed the room in four long strides, pausing only for a moment to consider that this may be a trap. If it was Steve was inclined to believe that he could hold his own against a man with a broken leg. He hopped on the bed and grabbed the man by the hair, maybe a little more forcefully than intended, but it was effective in stopping the self inflicted brain scrambling.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Steve yelled before his common sense was able to filter his thoughts into anything else.

There was a frankly worrying amount of blood seeping from his temple and his body was completely rigid, like every muscle in it was tensed as tight as possible.

“I’m sorry, what I meant ask was are- are you having a seizure, do you have like a preexisting medical condition or something?”

The soldier slowly turned his gaze and looked Steve directly in the eyes for the first time and his heart nearly stopped. They were black. Honest to god, darker than the pits of hell, black. But no, no that wasn’t true. They were blue, his pupils were just dilated to the point that he could barely see the man’s irises. And, oh god, dilated pupils were a sign of something weren’t they? Steve thought back the the very little medical training that he had received in his life. Drug use? Brain damage? Eye trauma? And it was at that point that the soldier started to convulse.

“Hey, hey, calm down man. We’re going to get through this, can you tell me if this has happened before?”

And it wasn’t until that instant that Steve realized he didn’t even know the guys name. The dude was going to die right in front of him and the only words of comfort he could offer would be “it’s ok soldier”. And Steve didn’t care how evil of a guy he was, no one deserved to go out like that, scared and alone in the middle of nowhere with no one but an enemy soldier that doesn’t even know your fucking name to see you through.

“No protocol,” the soldier said, breaking though Steve’s thoughts, in the calm level voice of someone giving a report to their commanding officer. “No protocol, and Iosif won’t speak, and the brain is remembering.”

He stopped convulsing then and pulled his head away from Steve’s hand so fast that some of his hair ripped out. Steve maneuvered himself to be between the soldier and the wall so that, instead of of banging his head on the wood, he was just bumping it into Steve’s chest.

“Alright buddy, it’s alright,” Steve spoke soothingly, having calmed himself down enough to begin to think straight. “What don’t you have protocol for?”

“Capture by enemy forces.”

“Ya that can be a tricky one. What about Iosif, who is he?”

“Handler,” he retorted in a clipped, almost pained tone.

Steve thought that maybe he was confused about where he was so he asked, “how do you know he won’t talk? You’ve been alone in this cabin with me for two days.”

“He always talks. The head Iosif. The human Iosif not as much.”

Well, that was…concerning. “The head Iosif?” Steve tentatively questioned. A nod was the only response. “Can you tell me some more about that?”

“Head Iosif controls missions. Gives orders. But he has been silent for 31 hours 12 minutes and 43, 44, 45, 46, 46, 46, 46 seconds.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Clearly there was more to this guy’s story than Steve had previously thought and he was cursing Stark for taking so long because the man needed to be in a hospital with people much more equipped to treat him than Steve was. Maybe he had been a willing victim and joined hydra of his own accord, but whatever the fuck they had done to him was beyond inhume, systematically striping away his humanity until he was nothing but a blubbering mess and a weapon. And then, for a startling moment, Steve considered the possibility that he wasn’t a part of Hydra at all, that he was some kind of POW or kidnapping victim.

Steve had seen it before, during his days in Germany. He had helped liberate a number of facilities that were conducting medical experiments on captured enemy troops, or even civilians. He seen bodies of men with the tops of their skulls removed and electrodes shoved into every available corner, guys who had been lobotomized, and others who gave accounts of brutal pavlovianesque reinforcement experiments that tried to illicit strange behaviors in them. And then Steve realized that when he had grabbed the man hair, he had also definitely felt thick, raised scars crisscrossing his head and some abnormal dents in parts of his skull.

“And what are you remembering buddy?” Steve questioned in his most gentle tone. Trying to coax more of the story out.

“Not me, The Asset does not remember. The brain, the parasite that was the man before The Asset, he screams at me. He wont stop screaming at me.”

And then he began sobbing uncontrollably, making loud gasping breaths like he couldn’t get enough air. With no idea what to do and no better plan Steve just wrapped a strong arm around him and pulled him up against his chest. He used his other hand to gently, but firmly grasp his thumping head and hold it still against himself. Steve made what he hoped were soft comforting sounds and whispered the kinds of things that his own mother used to say to him all those years ago when he was sick and hurting. He wanted to ask more question, to figure out who this man really was and tell him how good it was that he was remembering himself. But he was obviously too distressed to handle any further conversation. So Steve just gently rocked him back and forth till his tears ran dry.

Afterwards Steve gave him two large glasses of water to rehydrate, bandaged up his head, and heated up a large bowl of baked beans, though Steve would be surprised if he actually ate any. “Lay down and try to get some rest, you haven’t slept for days,” Steve said and, to his surprise, the man actually did it. Steve was starting to get the feeling that he responded much better to orders than suggestions and the thought saddened him. But if that’s what had to happen for the soldier to take care of himself, then Steve would gladly become the bossiest warden in all or Canada.

 

\----------------

  
By the time the sun rose the soldier was gone. His cloths were folded neatly on the bed and none of the blankets were missing so Steve figured he had gone outside naked. The tracks were old, but hadn’t yet been filled in completely with snow so Steve figured he could easily follow him. He rad outside with all the blankets in the cabin and followed the tracks that headed north towards the forest. Why had he gone out naked? If his serum was even half as strong as Steve’s own, which judging by his combat abilities it was, then the temperature wouldn’t kill him. And he had headed in the opposite direction of the last known Hydra base and any civilization in general.

After 15 minutes or so of running through shin deep snow Steve figured that he had covered at least 4 miles, but the soldier was still no where in sight. He obviously had enhanced speed from the serum, but judging by the shape of the prints it didn’t appear that he hadn’t been running, meaning that he had to of been out walking for hours.

The light reflecting off the pure white snow was blinding, so Steve didn’t notice the curled up body until he was nearly on top of the man. He was half buried in snow laying near the base of a tree and there was something moving in his arms. Steve approached as quietly as he could manage, which wasn’t very quiet with the snow crunching beneath his feet, but the soldier didn’t wake. Upon closer inspection Steve realized that the thing he was curled around wasn’t a thing at all, it was an animal, a baby deer in fact. Well not a deer exactly, but whatever Canada’s version of a deer is. Caribou? Elk? And it was just chilling there, completely content in his arms. It even gave the soldier's sleeping face a few licks. _Who is this guy, a goddamn Disney princess?_ And Steve gave himself a clap on the back because he had just successfully made a reference that wasn’t exclusive to those who grew up in the 1930s. He’d have to tell Tony. That was, if the guy every fucking found them.

The next step he took broke a branch that was hiding under the snow and the fawn or calf or whatever the hell it was startled and ran away. And maybe neither of those words were right because the animal was a hell of a lot larger than it looked laying down. The movement woke the soldier who then stared at Steve with a confused, distant gaze.

“Hey buddy, it’s just me. It’s, uhh, Steve,” he said in quiet voice. “That was, uhh, that was definitely pretty weird I’m not going to lie.”

Steve stared into the forest that the animal had run into, but it was nowhere to be seen. He shook his head than returned his gaze to the soldier.

“Anyways, would it be alright if I come over to you? I just want to give you some blankets, I promise.”

The confusion in his eyes turned to suspicion and Steve tried his best to channel the completely benign, nonthreatening version of himself from his youth.

“Come on buddy, I know you’ve got to be cold. Just let me give you a blanket.”

He had no idea if the façade would work with his 220lbs of muscle, but eventually the soldier gave a slow tentative nod. He approached with as much caution as he would with an injured cat. Steve had seen glimpses of his body when he had disarmed him, but now it was on full display. Scars snaked across almost every available inch of his skin. There were the normal knife, burn, and bullet scars, but there were also many strangely shaped ones and Steve didn’t want to begin to imagine what had caused them. When he was within arms reach he held out the blanket. The man's flesh arm reached for it, but the metal one grabbed his own wrist with what had to be painful force.

“I-I can’t” he whispered, almost to himself.

“Sure you can pal, all you gotta do is take the blanket.”

He gave a sharp shake of the head and a forceful, “NO”.

“Can you tell me why, pal?”

“The body has been out of cryo for 27 days. This is 7 days longer than allowable duration. The body must be refrozen.”

Cryo? And all of a sudden the impossible timeline of The Winter Soldier’s activities made sense. And if the stories were to be believe that meant this man could have been being used by Hydra for 7 decades, or even longer. Maybe, maybe the guy was even older than Steve. But no, that couldn’t be, no one had the serum’s technology before Howard Stark.

Steve wanted to explain to the guy that hydra was evil. That everything they had done to him for decades was wrong and that he would never see any of them again. That everyone he perceived as an enemy were actually the good guys. But Steve didn’t really think he could take all that information in his current mental state. To have the very core of your existence taken away like that was probably not a good idea. For all Steve knew they told him he was a hero and all his actions were justified and the knowledge that he had been killing innocents in the name of a terrorist organization might be too much right now.

“Okay, okay. But you’ve been out for seven extra days and your still fine, what difference is one more day going to make?”

Of course the word fine wasn’t really applicable to any part of this situation, but Steve had never claimed to be a 100% truthful guy. In all actuality he had absolutely no idea if being out of cryo had any affects on the soldier. Maybe Hydra had implemented some sort of dead man switch to prevent him from escaping that would kill him if he was out for too long. But he had been out seven extra days and only with Steve for two and a half of them. So evidently Hydra believed he could operate past the 20-day mark.

The soldier slowly removed the metal arms grip from his own wrist and placed it behind his back. He stared at it with immense concentration the whole times, like he was consciously willing it to move. He then took the blanket from Steve’s outstretched hand and wrapped it around himself.

“See, isn’t that better? Let’s go back to the cabin where it’s even warmer. I won’t chain you up and you can lay right in front of the fireplace.” Steve worked in the command in the kindest way possible, but didn’t leave any room for disagreement.

The soldier considered this for quite a while before abruptly standing and beginning to retrace the tracks leading back to the cabin. Steve jogged a little to catch up then fell into step walking right next to him. They walked in silence for a while before Steve just had to speak up.

“Man that deer cuddled up next to you might be the craziest thing I’ve seen all week, and that’s including Natasha’s clown paraphernalia collection. It’s like it thought you were its mom or something. Straight up mistook you for a doe.”

His companion made an aggravated grumbling noise then murmured something incomprehensible under his breath.

“Speak up buddy. You might be the deer whisperer but I can’t understand ya unless you talk louder.”

“I’m a buck, not a doe,” he said in a tone that conveyed how big of an imbecilic he considered Steve to be, while simultaneously being obviously offended.

Steve gave a big chuckle. He didn’t really understand why the guy had chosen this particular hill to die on, but if he didn’t like being misgendered who was Steve to argue with that?

“Right you are buddy! And a ten-point buck to boot!”

 

\----------------

 

It took them a little less them two hours to reach the cabin and, just as Steve had promised, he let the man that he was now affectionately referring to as ‘Buck’ sit uncuffed in front of the fire. With his newfound knowledge that Buck would respond well to direct orders Steve was determined to finally get some food into him. He plopped the freshly cooked bowl of pasta and marinara sauce down in from of him and sat down across the rug to eat his own. He ate silently for a few minutes to give him the opportunity to decide to eat on his own, but predictably Buck just sat there staring at him.

“Eat that pasta, Buck. It’s really good I promise and you have to be starving.”

Buck looked up at him with miserable eyes and acted as if Steve had just ordered him to kick a puppy.

“Common buddy,” Steve said placatingly, “we’re both going to sit here until you finish at least half of that bowl. The only way you're getting out of it is if you have like an allergy or something.”

Buck reached out with a slightly trembling hand and grasped the fork like a child would with all four fingers wrapped tightly around the handle. It took him a couple of tries to impale a few penne noodles but he eventually managed it. He lifted the fork to his mouth with so much disgust and hesitation Steve could have believed he was about to bite into a mouthful of bird shit.

“It’s not poisoned or anything. Look I’m eating the same thing you are,” Steve offered then took a bite of his own meal and made and exaggerated “mmmm” sound.

Buck eventually took the bite than chewed it for about five times longer than necessary. When he finally swallowed he had to lean back and shake his head a little to get it down. Steve didn’t understand why he hated the stuff so bad. Had Hydra conditioned him not to like the taste of pasta? Seemed like a really weird and not very useful thing to spend time on doing. Then it occurred to him, past all the fear in Buck’s eyes there was also confusion.

“Hey buddy do you- do you not know how to eat food?”

His guess was right on the money judging by the look of, was that actually embarrassment on Buck’s face?

“The Asset is fed by nasogastric intubation,” he responded defensively.

Steve had been on the receiving end of pity for the majority of his waking life, so he knew how terrible it felt. Because of this he made it a habit of trying not to pity others, empathize: yes, pity: no. But there was just no other word for what he felt for this man. With every new piece of information he discovered the feeling only grew more and more. And there seemed to be no end to the despair that had befallen him.

“Well,” Steve choked out, making a valiant effort to not let his emotions show through, “lets make some soup then, it will be a lot easier for you to get down. It’ll be just like drinking water.” 

He offered Buck a tentative smile than rose to go and find the best soup their hideout had to offer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a huge Stucky fan but not as into the MCU as a whole so if any of my lore is wrong please forgive me. Also this was not betad so I apologize for any mistakes. Hope you guys enjoy chapter one and I would love to hear any comments or criticisms below:)


	2. No Control

The Target- Steve- _The Target_ was asleep on the cot across the cabin from it. Mission objective was still to capture, but cooperation was currently the best means to reach that eventual goal. At least that’s what The Asset told Iosif who, though still remaining silent, had to be listening. He was _always_ listening. Every once in a while though The Asset would let a thought slip through. He remembered that that was one of the hardest parts of training, leaning to suppress thoughts. Before, when this mistake would happen, head Iosif would take control of the body for a split second and force it to punish The Asset. But two nights ago there had been a malfunction. It was The Assets own fault, it had allowed itself to think about the cards. There were pictures of knights and maidens on some of them and that evil part of the brain had whispered, “ _pretty_ ”. The punishment wasn’t immediate, but that night it had lost control of the body for a full 4 minutes and 43 seconds, and in that time the punishment had become loud enough to rouse The Target.

It must have been a critical malfunction because ever since nothing had been working properly. He- _It_ had lost time, begun to let more and more thoughts trickle through, and was taking part in activities Iosif was sure to disapprove of. When The Target had brought a blanket to it in the forest that evil corner of the mind had whispered, “ _friend_ ”. When it was chewing the food and was sure it would be unable to swallow, it had whispered, “ _try_ ”. And every time Steve- _The Target_ called it Buck a muscle near the corner of the mouth would twitch. The twitch wasn’t like the finger tick though, it felt…right? Familiar?

The target sighed in his sleep then rolled over so his back was facing the room. The mechanical arm gave a whir of excitement, it had always been more vicious than the rest of the body and almost seemed to enjoy violence. The arm reached out toward him and it felt as if it was dragging the rest of the body across the room.

Buck- _The Asset_ knew what would come next. The arm would reach out, grip The Target’s esophagus and rip it from his throat. He wouldn’t die immediately. He’d struggle for a while while it sat there and listened to him gurgling, the sound of him choking on his own blood. It didn’t like that sound. The Copper smell of the blood would fill the room. It didn’t like that smell. And eventually, after about a minute or so, The Target would become silent, still, neutralized. It didn’t want Steve to die.    

It was running out of time, it was almost to the edge of the cot. If Steve would just wake up everything would be ok. If Steve would just be a little less stupid, he wouldn’t have to die. How could he be that trusting? How could he eat soup that had been alone with an assassin for hours? How could he leave arguably the most dangerous man alive unchained? How could he go to sleep with that very same man in the very same room?  That trust was idiotic and misguided and probably going to get him killed, but for some reason The Asset didn’t want to loose it.

It couldn’t stop the persistent advance of the arm, but it desperately gave a strangled yelp loud enough to wake even the heaviest of sleepers. Steve woke and leapt from the bed, a wild look in his eyes, and clutched at his chest. When his eyes landed on it, frozen in place in the middle of the room, he seemed to calm.

“Hey buck,” he panted, “sorry about that, you just scared me a little is all. Was kinda having a bad dream.”

“ _Sad_ ,” came the quiet murmur of the evil part of the brain.

Steve stared at the outstretched metal arm in confusion for a moment before quickly reaching out and shaking it.

“Good morning to you too pal, how’d you sleep?”

The Asset did not answer.

“Talkative as ever I see, Buck. Better pace yourself or you might loose your voice from all that yappin.”

That muscle at the corner of its mouth twitched.

\----------------------

Steve went about making breakfast, trying to distract himself from the memories of the pleading voices and shrieking wails that had haunted his dream. Steve had once naïvely believed that everyone could be saved, back when being a soldier was just an idea, an aspiration and not a reality. But war and Hydra and fucking aliens had taught him that there were always casualties. Just collateral damage to the people on top, the ones making the wars without ever having to step foot on a battlefield. To them their deaths were just a number on a page. But for Steve, and every other soldier that had seen those losses firsthand, the voices of the lost would haunt them every second of the rest of their lives. People who he hadn’t been strong enough, or fast enough, or smart enough to get to in time. Images of bodies that littered the streets of towns burned to the grounds days before Steve’s platoon even arrived waited for him each time he closed his eyes. He was so tired of not being able to save people, and he desperately wished he wouldn’t have to add Buck's voice to the chorus of the dead that performed in his nightmares.

Buck had handled both the tomato and cream of mushroom soups that Steve had given him the previous day pretty well, but he still didn’t think he was ready for anything with solids in it. Which ruled out chicken noodle, beef and vegetable, and practically every other soup available in the pantry.

“Do you think you can handle some oatmeal for breakfast, Buck? Its not as liquidly as soup, but its not solid either.”

Buck made a grunt that Steve chose to interpret as a “yes” from across the room. It looked like he was making a conscious effort be as far away from Steve as the 30ft x 30ft cabin possibly allowed. It was kind of sad, the guy had seemed at least moderately okay with sitting within a few feet of Steve just the night before.

When Steve went back to cooking he heard Buck clattering about behind him, but he chose to ignore it. None of his weapons were hidden in the cabin so Steve wasn’t too worried about it. When he finished up and turned around he saw that Buck had recuffed himself to the large chain, well his left arm anyway, and was hanging some bells that he had fished out of who the hell know where onto it.

“You know buddy you don’t have to wear those anymore, I know that you can get out of them.”

Buck just grunted in response then, after a moment of silence, said, “It doesn’t like you.” And gestured to the manacled arm.

“Your arm doesn’t like me?” Steve asked, perplexed.

Buck nodded his head.

“Well ok then,” Steve offered, “I’ll be, uhh, sure to watch out for that.”

Steve was by no means a phycologist, but didn’t really have to be to know that talking about your body like it had a mind of its own wasn't exactly... healthy. But maybe it did have a mind of its own, Hydra had make it and clearly their doctors had skipped the ethics class when getting their degrees.

There was so much more that they could be doing for Buck if they weren’t stuck here in this fucking cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere. Bruce probably knew some neuroscientist that could help with whatever physical procedures Hydra had done to him, and Sam could hook him up with a good trauma counselor, and if the arm really was evil Tony could build him a new one. Then Steve realized that he was volunteering all his friends to aid and abet in the harboring of a fugitive. And not just any fugitive either, a murderous cyborg terrorist fugitive on the FBI’s most wanted list. But what were they supposed to do, just let the courts have him? Even if he was acquitted of all charges the trial would probably take years. And that’s if he even made it that far. The army or CIA would probably take custody of him before they even hit the tarmac and whisk him off to have every piece of useful intel interrogated out of him. No, if SHEILD found them first they’d keep him for themselves, and Steve didn’t know if that would be any better. He needed to talk to Nat, she’d know what to do. She probably dealt with crazy cyborg terrorist and the plethora of agencies going after them on the reg.

\--------------

Later on in the day after Buck had seemed to calm down a bit and was back to being semi-comfortable in close proximity with Steve he proposed that they play some Connect Four. It was one of the many many games that had been invented after Steve kinda sorta legally died for a bit, but was about as self explanatory as they came. He thought that it would be fun and easy enough to learn, even for someone who probably hadn’t played a game in decades.  Buck hadn’t technically agreed to play, but he hadn’t said no either so Steve just set it up and explained the rules.

“I’ll start,” he exclaimed, then dropped a red piece into the center column.

Buck just stared at him for a while and if Steve could’ve given a name to the look he would have called it, “you may be the dumbest human being I’ve ever met and I’m trying to decide whether to humor you or not.” But after a minute or so of Steve’s stubborn persistence not to move Buck slowly picked a yellow piece and put it in the slot to the left of the center column.

He won ten games in a row.

Though it shouldn’t have, it surprised Steve how smart Buck was. He had figured that fucking around in someone’s head that much must have negative impacts on their intelligence. It was a rude assumption that Steve felt bad for making. Just because someone was damaged didn’t mean they were broken and just because someone didn’t speak, or had disabilities didn’t make them stupid. Steve remembered all the things that people who didn’t even know him had thought and said back in elementary school when he had used a wheelchair for a few months after a particularly difficult battle with Rheumatic fever, and he felt guilty for joining them.  And he should have known that, duh, of course Hydra would be motivated to preserve any characteristic that was likely to be useful in the field.

This time he was one away from winning in two different spots and he was desperately trying to put on his almost never effective poker face to fool his opponent into some false sense of security. That was until three seconds later when Buck dropped his piece then reached to Steve’s side of the board to drag his finger across the four yellow circles lined up right next to each other. They weren’t even diagonal, literally just a horizontal line of pieces. Steve’s jaw dropped as he stared across at Buck, incredulous. And the guy had the audacity to look Steve right in the eyes and give an exaggerated shrug with both shoulders. That sassy mother fucker.

“Cheater!” Steve accused, even though he was pretty sure it was physically impossible to cheat at Connect Four.

Buck didn’t even dignify that with a response.

He finally, _finally_   won a game during their 13th round and actually jumped for joy and sang “I am the champion” while doing a little dance. Out of the corner of his eye he could’ve sworn that he saw Buck smiling. When he eventually settled down he waited for Buck to start the next round, because it was his turn, but he just stared at Steve contemplatively.

“I have a question,” he broached.

“Go for it,” Steve beamed, exited that he had actually struck up a conversation of his own volition.

“Why do you fight Hydra?”

It was such a straight forward question that Steve found it hard to answer. Like if someone had asked him why does he wear pants or why do people drive cars. He still wasn’t sure if Buck was ready to hear the truth about the organization he worked for, but he also wasn’t going to lie to him. Eventually he just decided on the simple honest answer.

“Well because they’re bad Buck. They kill people and start wars and destabilize nations.”

He seemed to think about that answer for a moment then offered, “And things that are bad… they should be stopped?”

He asked like he legitimately didn’t know the answer, it wasn’t a challenge or objection.

“Ya buddy, if something is bad it should be stopped.”

The answer appeared to genuinely confuse him for a moment and Steve could almost see the gears turning in his head.

“How do you know if something is bad,” he questioned.

“Well sometimes its hard to tell, sometimes you don’t know. But generally if something is hurting or negatively affecting others than its bad.”  

Buck looked down at his metal arm then sharply snapped his head away and Steve realized the implication of his word.

He quickly revised, “But if someone else makes you do something bad it doesn’t mean that _you_ are bad, just whoever forced you to do that thing.”

Buck pulled the lever that made all the game pieces fall through to the floor than rose and went over to his cot and sat facing the wall. Steve couldn’t help but feel that he had just royally fucked up that conversation, but he honestly didn’t know what else to say, he had told Buck the truth. And not for the first time this trip Steve desperately wished that Sam was there. Why was it him, out of all the people in the world that were infinitely more well equipped to handle this situation, why was it Steve that Buck had to get marooned out here with. He just picked up the pieces and returned the game to its home on the shelf before going to his side of the room to play some Solitaire, trying to give Buck some time and space to process.

\-------------

By the time lunch rolled around Buck had actually fallen asleep for the very first time without being explicitly told to do so. And Steve didn’t care that the guy hadn’t eaten more than 1000 calories in the past three and a half days, you couldn’t pay him to wake up Buck at this point. It was also the first time that Buck had slept when Steve was not also heading to bed so he took the opportunity to see what he looked like. It was somewhat anticlimactic, but what had Steve expected? He wasn’t having a nightmare, but he didn’t really look peaceful either. He kind of looked exactly like he did when he was awake, tense and weary. 

Steve decided to get lunch cooking anyways and just have it waiting for buck when he woke. Right when he was in the middle of opening the second can he heard the bells on Buck’s arm begin to jingle. He turned around to see Buck still fast asleep, but the metal arm was gripping and pulling on the chain that bound it. _It doesn’t like you,_ came Buck’s voice in his memory.

“Hey pal, how about you wake up now,” Steve cautioned.

And it was like the arm could hear him because the second he finished the sentence it clenched the chain in its fist and jerked it to the left, hard, causing it to rip trough the wood, sending shrapnel flying, effectively expanding the four-inch hole to a meter long slit in the wall. This gave the chain a few extra feet of slack, allowing Buck the ability to reach almost the whole cabin. It was then that the soldier’s eyes flew opened and Steve realized that Buck definitely wasn’t home right now. He stared at him with flat, unseeing eyes, then launched himself across the room toward Steve.

He got Buck in a headlock and frantically spoke into his ear, “come on buddy, snap out of it! You don’t have to do this, your Buck, Bucky, we’re friends! We played Connect Four together and you put bells on yourself so you couldn’t hurt me. Remember, I know you can remember!”

But it was futile, the soldier just kept clawing at Steve’s face till he was forced to let go and shove him away. Steve didn’t want to fight him so he just backed into the far corner that he was pretty sure Buck still couldn’t reach. He ran at Steve again, but was yanked back by the chain with such a force that if his wrist wasn’t metal it would surely have broken. He glared at the chain with more disgust and malice than even Natasha could’ve manage. He then followed the connection of the chain and looked out to see the jet sitting on the shore line.  He sprinted for it, unconcerned by the fact that he was barefoot and there was nearly a foot of snow outside. He leapt through the kicked out front window and Steve could hear the smashing of metal against metal all the way from the cabin. Steve was just glad that Buck had stopped attacking him and prayed that he would wear himself out before he came back for seconds.

After about 30 minutes or so the crashing slowed then eventually fell silent. He walked out to the aircraft and found Buck just standing in the center of it, motionless and not really focused on anything. He wouldn’t or couldn’t respond to Steve so he just gently guided him back to the house and tucked him into his cot. He then shoved one of the spare blankets into the gaping hole in the wall in an attempt to insulate the freezing room. After he had gotten everything cleaned up his gaze fell on the two cans he had been in the middle of opening before this all started and longed for the simplicity of that time. Now he was so conflicted, he didn’t want Buck locked up, but he also couldn’t afford to allow someone so dangerous and unstable onto the streets. He had looked into those eyes and he had known, known that there was absolutely no way of breaking though whatever spell had imprisoned him.

\----------------------

The Asset had lost time, quite a bit of time judging by the darkness of night that engulfed it. It remembered bits and pieces of the past hours. Remembered that Iosif had come back and with a vengeance, seemingly having disregarded the “capture” portion of the original mission objective. It remembered Steve calling to it, pleading to _him_. A pang of fear ran through The Asset, but no, it hadn’t killed Steve, because it could hear the deep rhythmic breaths of him fast asleep on his cot across the room. There was also a hole in the wall that hadn’t been there that morning and it caused the temperature of the room to drop a few degrees. It remembered the conversation it had had earlier that day. Steve had said that whoever forced it do the bad things was problem, not The Asset itself. But what if that person lived in its own head? It had begun to come to terms with the fact that it wouldn’t be returning to Hydra, it knew that on a conceptual level, but what did that even mean? It tried to think back to the life of the man whose body it inhabited, tried to envision a life without Hydra, but couldn’t. So it just lay there staring into the darkness waiting for sleep, or death, or something else entirely that it was incapable of even imagining.


	3. No Presence

It was around noon on the fifth day that they were stranded when Steve heard the unmistakable sound of jet engines approaching. He ran outside to find Tony stomping out of a quinjet he had quite impressively landed in a field Steve could’ve sworn was too small. 

“Took you long enough,” Steve admonished. 

“Took _me_ long enough?!” Tony almost squeaked, “What did _you_ do to my plane? You somehow managed to destroy all four trackers in it before you reached the boarder! One of them was below the floor boards! One was in the Ceiling!”

 By the time he had finished his rant he had reached Steve and pulled him into a hug. Then said in a slightly more serious tone, “I’m glad you’re ok Cap, I honestly didn’t know what I was going to find out here.”

 When they eventually let go he looked up to see Natasha strolling up, as unfazed as ever. He leaned in for a quick hug, but didn’t dare hold on for as long as he had with Tony. It had taken him months to work up to even this much contact with her.

“I told him you were fine,” she said as she pulled away, “he really doesn’t have much faith in you.”

Her sarcasm was the type that you could only identify through context clues, because there was never any change in infection. And Steve still wasn’t exactly sure if anything she said was actually sarcastic or not. But she give him a little smirk and it was about as much as Steve could ask from her in term of a joyous reunion.

And it was at that moment that Buck decided to peak his head out. A number of things happened in quick succession. Firstly, Buck’s look of cautious curiosity turned to one of stark terror and he disappeared back into the cabin faster than Steve could even really process his presence. Then, Natasha produced two firearms so quickly that Steve actually thought they might have been pulled before Buck appeared. Tony, who didn’t have the reflexes of an insane person, blinked a couple times before slamming a button on his watch that sent pieces of his suit flying out of the jet and onto his person. Steve, ever slow on the uptake, finally jumped into action just as Tony’s mask clipped into place. He moved to position himself between Nat and the cabin, even though there was no possible way she could accurately hit Buck through the wall, with a handgun, at that distance.

He held a palm up toward each of them in a calming gesture and urged frantically, “Wait, wait! It not like that, he’s not combative.”

Not combative?” Tony scoffed, “Tell that to the bruises all over your body. And the hole in the back of my ship!”

I know, I know,” Steve conceded, “but he didn’t know what he was doing Tony. They fucked with his head really badly, like brainwashing or something. The guy doesn’t even know how to eat food.” 

It didn’t look like that pacified Tony very much though as he remained with his arms outstretched in a firing stance. Steve shifted so that he was now between Tony and the cabin as currently he seemed like a bigger threat.

“Alright how about we a just calm down,” Natasha cajoled, ever the realist, “Steve I understand you don’t want us to kill him, but we need to take this threat seriously. Some of those bruises on your face look only a day or two old.” 

Steve felt like he was a kid being reprimanded by a school teacher.

“He did attack me yesterday, but it wasn’t him. He wasn’t in his right mind when he did it. He needs help Natasha, you haven’t seen him when he’s himself.”

She squinted at him, clearly reading deeply into Steve’s words and he wasn’t exactly sure what she saw there. 

“Alright,” Tony relented, “we will be as gentle as possible when we detain him, but he’s going to be restrained and I’m going to do it _with_ the suit on.”

Steve did not like the idea of that one bit, but once he got past his personal investment and saw it from an objective position it really was the most reasonable thing to do.

“At least let me be the one to do it, he trusts me.”

\------------------- 

Buck was curled up in his spot on the cot holding a makeshift knife made out of what appeared to be a shard of glass with fabric wrapped around the base. The threatening nature of the weapon was belied by the fact that the man holding it was visibly shaking. Steve motioned for Nat and Tony to stay by the door as he cautiously approached.

“Hey Buck, I’m sorry we scared you. These are my friends, they’re the good guys and won’t do anything to hurt you, ok?”

He didn’t seem to register Steve’s words and his eyes were locked on the people standing being him. 

“Buck, buddy, were going to take you somewhere where we can help you ok? It will be safe I promise and you can eat all the soup and play as many board games as you want.”

Steve was getting the feeling that trying to bribe him like you would an 8-year-old wasn’t really going to work, but he didn’t really have any better plans at this point. He kept inching closer and Buck refused to take his eyes off the strangers until Steve was kneeling right at the edge of his bed. He met Steve’s eyes and looked as if he desperately wanted to believe him, but was too frightened to. Steve didn’t even attempt to take the glass away, assuming that having it might bring him some sense of security. He tentatively placed a hand on Buck’s knee and spoke softly.

“You can trust me Buck. I’m not going to let anything hurt you, I promise. Please, just come with us.”

Buck exhaled sharply and Steve realized that he had phrased it as an order. Buck buried his head in his knees and held both arm out like he was submitting to being handcuffed. This wasn’t how Steve had wanted this to go, he wanted Buck to have a say in what happened to him, wanted him to agree of his own free will. But this option was a thousand times better than a fight breaking out and risking Tony or Nat killing him. So Steve begrudgingly placed the cuffs, if you could really call them that because they encased the entire hand and had to weigh at least 20 pounds, onto Buck and gently rubbed his wrists where the metal met flesh on one side and more metal on the other.

Without making any more eye contact with anyone Buck allowed himself to be led to the quinjet and placed into a specialty made soundproof, bulletproof, super soldier proof cell. Steve stared at him pressed into the corner, unmoving and couldn’t help the sick curl of guilt that churned in his gut.

“When we get back the first thing he’s getting is medical attention, not being interrogated, not left in another cell, medical attention,” he finished with a finality that was usually reserved for life or death mission orders.

“Alright cap, we’ll be sure to get the super soldier cyborg assassin some Hello Kitty band aids first thing,” Tony joked in his perpetually nonchalant tone that would really piss Steve off if he didn’t know that most of the time it was masking good intentions. Nat stayed suspiciously quite watching Steve with the look of a scientists observing one of her test subjects.

Eventually she asked, “You call him Buck?”

“Well I couldn’t just call him soldier all the time,” Steve retorted, a little defensively. There was no reason to be, but Natasha’s gaze was putting him on edge. He tried to lighten his tone and joked, “its actually a pretty weird story, but I kind of think I may have hallucinated it, so I don’t really want to tell you.”

She gave a short chuckle, but Steve could tell she was just humoring him. They flew with companionable small talk, but there was an unmistakable underlying feeling of tension in the air. But just as he’d promised the second they landed on the roof of Stark tower Tony had a fleet of guards and medical personnel waiting to whisk Buck away to the infirmary. Steve tried to follow, but was stopped by Natasha who ordered him to go debrief. He was about to argue when she pointed out that all the information he could give about the soldier was important for the doctors to know and the fastest way to do that was with an official debriefing. He didn’t like it but Buck was being extremely compliant with all the staff so Steve figured he would be alright for a little while and this would be the best way to help him in the long run. Even though he was fairly unresponsive Steve stopped to tell Buck where he was going and that he would be back as soon as possible.

\-------------------

It was an agonizing two hours of questioning and when Steve finally finished he was ordered by the head agent to go clean up before anything else.

“To be honest captain you spell like a pig’s anus right now; your boy is in good hands. I’ve been informed that he hasn’t spoken yet, but hasn’t shown any signs of hostility either. Go shower, change, take a nap even. The world ain’t going to fall apart if you’re not here every second to spot it.”

Steve complied with the hygiene order because he hadn’t taken a shower in five days and had been shitting in an out house with single ply toilet paper for just as long, but there was no way in hell he was taking a fucking nap afterwards. He took a two-minute military shower and was on the hospital floor within ten minutes. Tony, Natasha, and a small army of SHEILD agents were standing in the observation deck of Buck’s room. Nat waved him over and said that they were still running tests, but the head doctor would be out in a few minutes to update them on what they knew so far.

Right on cue a tall African American woman with short cropped hair in a lab coat exited Buck’s room and approached them.

“Hello ladies and gentlemen, I’m Doctor Alston and I’m the lead Doctor on Mr. Buck’s case.”

 It caught Steve off guard to hear the stupid nickname in such and official context and he felt guilty for holding so much power over the man life. He hadn’t even formally asked Buck if he liked it or not. He had refused to give his own name and had nodded when Steve asked if he could use it, but he was probably used to agreeing to things he didn’t necessarily like.

The agents in the room quickly greeted her and she flipped open a folder presumably containing Buck’s medical documents.

“Well,” she started, a little exhaustedly, “he is definitely one of the most complicated patients I’ve treated. We still have a lot of tests to run and a lot of procedures planned for the future, when he is in better condition. Our biggest immediate worry in the fact that he has a devise implanted in his left vastus intermedius muscle which is slowly releasing drugs into his bloodstream that, from what we can tell, will run out in about two days.”

“Can’t you just administer the drugs intravenously when they run out,” piped up a young agent that Steve didn’t recognize.

“We could, but these aren’t really drugs intended for a medical purposes. We haven’t identified the entire concoction yet, but there appears to be tranquillizers, steroids, opiates, hallucinogens, and multiple other psychoactive drugs present. A number of these will generate withdrawal in their absence and with the quantity that they’re in its hard to predict what all the potential effects of stopping them will be.”

Steve felt sick and couldn’t take his eyes off of Buck sitting motionless on the hospital bed in the other room while doctors poked and prodded at him. A little part of him was hopeful though that once they got the drugs out of his system he would be able get better.

“We are coming up with a timeline to wean him off of them without shocking his system too badly. To be honest there just isn’t that much research out there on treating super soldiers, so a certain amount of this is guess work,” she grew quiet for a moment and gazed at Buck sympathetically, “a normal human would overdose on that volume of narcotics immediately.”

The room was dead silent and no one seemed to have the words to break it. After about a minute the doctor cleared her throat and continued.

“Anyways, all other ailments don’t pose any immediate physical danger and can be dealt with once the drugs are taken care of. He is a little malnourished, but nothing to be alarmed about. The leg fracture appears to have already healed completely, which makes sense when compared to the known healing rate of Captain Rodgers. There is a foreign body present at the base of his skull, but we were unable to take an X-rays, or get an MRI since he became agitated when we tried to perform them. It was too large of a risk and they can be take when he is sedated at a later date. In fact, we’re are going to want to X-ray the entire body. He has a large number of previous wounds that appear to have gone untreated and we need to make sure they healed properly.”

“When will be able to interrogate him,” inquired another agent from the back of the room that Steve immediately shot death glares at.

The doctor seemed to share the same sentiment because she answered in a rather cold tone, “These are just the physical ailments we know of _sir_ , that’s not to mention the psychological trauma this man had endured. Even if he was capable of speaking, which he doesn’t appear to be at this time, I would not allow him to be questioned until he has been evaluated by a mental health professional. You can expect it to be quite some time before you get your interview.”

The agent was definitely unpleased by this information but he dutifully remained silent and didn’t question the doctor anymore.

After a few more questions from other agents the doctor politely took her leave and returned to Buck’s room. The agents filed out the door one by one till it was just Steve and Natasha remaining. Nat seemed to be more concerned with watching Steve than Buck though. After a moment he spoke up.

“I’m going to stay here for a while, maybe see if they’ll let me go in and see him for a bit. You don’t have to stay; I know how busy you are.”

She considered this and for a second Steve could have sworn she was about to say something, but she eventually just turned on her heels and followed the other agents out the door.

\---------------

 Steve had eventually been allowed to enter Buck's room, but he was just as quiet and detached as he had been ever since he was cuffed that morning. Now he was completely strapped down to the bed and Steve found himself apologizing over and over, telling Buck that it was for his safety and that it would get better, but none of it eased the gnawing guilt that consumed him. Just 24 hours ago Buck had been talking and playing and questioning and now he had reverted to the dissociated, silent man of the first time Steve had seen him. He comforted himself with the knowledge that all that was wrong with him could know be properly treated and just prayed that the headway they had made could be regained. When Dr. Alston had eventually kicked him out he went to the floor that Tony had reserved for him and tried to get some sleep. Of course that was impossible and and hour later he found himself jogging around one of the seven indoor tracks of the tower. Natasha soon joined him and he slowed his pace so that she could fall in step.

“Steve,” she started and he could tell, he could just tell this was going to turn into a lecture, “you have white knight syndrome.” And that wasn’t what he had expected.

“White knight syndrome,” he questioned.  

“When you save someone and afterward you feel responsible for their entire life. You get too involved, don’t realize when the job stops. For people like us, we cant afford to get that all the time, we save too many people, we have to content ourselves with the fact that we did our jobs, we saved them, and the rest is out of our hands.”

Steve began to protest but she just held up her hand to stop him. 

“I’m not saying that you can never get attached, that’s inevitable, especially for someone like you. All I’m saying is that you have to really think about who you get attached to. Sometimes we cling to the ones we know we can’t save. Whether out of remorse, or fear of commitment, or some twisted means of self punishment, I don't know. And I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. You just need to know that you already saved him and he’s not your responsibility, not any more than the rest of ours, not if you don’t want it. And you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

Steve’s silenced protest came back, but before he was able to get more than two words out Natasha was waving goodbye and jogging off. And that was actually beneficial because Steve didn’t really know what to say. It was true that he was a fairly self deprecating person and tended to hold himself to standards that he wouldn’t hold anyone else to. A part of his mind knew that he didn’t deserve all the blame that he put on himself, knew that if someone else had done the things he’d done there’s no way in hell he would look down on them for it. But another part of himself, a bigger part of himself, screamed that he deserved every drop of regret he felt and then some. That he needed to make up for all those he had failed over the years.

And while all of that was true he genuinely didn’t believe it had anything to do with his obligation to help Buck. He wasn’t there because he felt guilty or because of some white knight syndrome, he was there because Buck was his friend. Because he had put bells on his arm to warn Steve and he had been sorry for what he did after he attacked him. He wanted to help Buck because he liked him as a person, felt a connection to him despite all the shit both of them had to deal with. And he figured if two people could form a friendship two days after trying to kill each other, then it was destined to be an amazing relationship. 

\-------------

Around 2 o’clock the next day Steve was sitting down in a conference room with a number of agents and operatives going over potential locations of Hydra bases. He had been back to see Buck twice and it may have been wishful thinking, but it seemed that he was slightly more comfortable, and even made eye contact with Steve a few times. He was currently trying to brainstorm where the closest place he could get a connect four game at was. Maybe the Target down the street? Of course Buck’s hands were still locked, but he could point to which row he wanted Steve to put his piece in. The agent presenting her findings was in the middle of a sentence when alarms started blaring followed shortly by flashing red slights. 

“Jarvis what’s going on,” Tony shouted over the noise.

An automated voice cut through the sirens for a moment and reported, “there is a security breach in the East hospital wing. It appears the Winter Soldier has broken through his restraints.”

Steve was up and running before Jarvis had finished the sentence. He had to get there and contain Buck before he hurt anyone. He had to get there before the tower’s security hurt him. The closer he got to the correct floor, however, the thicker the crowd he had to fight against grew. When he finally reached Buck’s room the only people left in sight were three of his doctors that Steve recognized.

“Is anyone hurt? Where is he?” he nearly shouted.

“No,” a short Indian woman whose nametag read Dr. Khatri MD said, “no one is hurt, he jumped out that way.” And she pointed to a large broken out window facing the eastside. Steve was about one millisecond away from vaulting out after him when another doctor spoke up.

“Wait! Captain Rodgers.”

“What,” Steve clipped, attempting and failing at not coming off annoyed.  

“He, ummm, he patted me on the head and gave me this,” she said and extend a piece of paper towards him.

Steve nearly snatched it out of her hands in his hurry. In neat blocky capital letters it read,

STEVE,

I WON'T DO BAD THINGS ANYMORE.

THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME THAT.

-BUCK


	4. No Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for transphobic language and mentions of drug use and period typical homophobia

The Asset had acquired a shopping cart, nine gallons of water, two industrial sized tubs of peanut butter, handcuffs, chains, a welding torch, and a spoon. The peanut butter had been chosen because when it had gotten a whiff of it in the grocery store the evil part of the mind had whispered “ _yum_ ”.

The Asset was now quickly making its way down to an abandoned section of subway tracks that had not been maintained for at least a decade. The doctors had explained in great detail all of the tests and treatments they were administering as well as informing it of everything they had found. It was strange, The Asset was used to countless medical procedure being preformed on it, but never had they been explained in such detail, or at all.  But these doctors had been adamant about telling it about every single needle stick and lab result that had been acquired, even when it had refused to make eye contact, to give any indication that it had been listening.

Because of this it was aware that it had no more than 15 hours till symptoms of withdrawal would kick it. This was the reason The Asset was heading to one of the only locations in the city that was guaranteed to not have civilians present. If Iosif had anything to say about it there would be casualties, numerous casualties. But Steve had taught it that killing people was wrong, that hurting innocents was bad. Iosif would no longer maintain complete control over this body. The Asset would find the deepest darkest corner of the world and chain itself down, weld the doors shut, and ride out the living hell the doctors had assured it the withdrawal would be.

Never again would it kill on Iosif’s orders. Not civilians, not the doctors working so hard to care for it, and especially not Steve. It was aware of what the body was capable of, even in a weakened state the restraints they had used were nowhere near adequate. That is why it had left, so that Dr. Alston and her staff would be spared, so that Steve wouldn’t be forced to kill The Asset, and so that it would no longer bring trouble to the agency it had plagued for decades.

When it had located an acceptable room encased in concrete and steal with only a single entry point The Asset began constructing its prison. The flickering sparks of the welding torch were the only lights that illuminated the space, and once it had finished the room was plunged into near absolute darkness, save for the sliver of light that passed though the lone breathing hole. It was silent and dark and humid, but somewhat strangely peaceful. It was the only time The Asset had truly been alone without a soul in the world monitoring its every move or expecting mandatory reports. It breathed in the stale air, sunk down into the corner, and awaited the onslaught that was sure to come, enjoying its freedom for the first time despite the fact that it was still in chains. 

\--------------------

Candy was hogging the one unbroken mirror in the whole apartment while she was getting ready for work. Her once white crop top exposed a loopy cursive tattoo that spelled out “sassy” on her lower back. Buck had always though it was an exceedingly accurate descriptor. He liked Candy, sometimes she would get a haunted look in her eyes just like the one Buck saw in his own reflection, Candy understood him. Of course that didn’t mean he couldn’t get frustrated with her for using the only mirror.

“Bitch didn’t I tell you to nick another one of those from the pharmacy, how am I supposed to get ready?”

That was Pepper and Buck thought that she could probably get matching tattoos with Candy and it would be equally as applicable. Everyone around here seemed to have been named after food items and Buck figured that made him fit in, technically you could eat a buck. But he hadn’t actually told anyone that was his name out of fear that word would get out and SHEILD would track him down. He had started remembering a lot of things recently and could have sworn his birth name was John, or Jake, or Jim, something like that. He just cut his losses and had chosen to go by Jay, figuring he could extend the name if he ever remembered.

“Sorry I ain’t a klepto like you Pep, why don’t you steal your own shit.”

“I wouldn’t need to steal my own shit if it hadn’t first been taken from me by _you_ , slut.” 

They would always bicker like this but there was no actual heat behind words. They loved each other and God help the man that ever tried to hurt one of them. Well there was one notable exception to that. Tommy was both of their bosses and even with Buck’s extreme inability to pick up on social cues he could tell that the girls were afraid of him. Buck had never actually met the man before, but he could tell by the way they would get quiet whenever talking about him, even if they were in the middle of the apartment with no chance of being overheard, and how they never spoke of him for more than a few sentences before changing topics. Buck did not like Tommy.

“Well if you stole it to begin with than it never actually belonged to you, now did it?”

Candy was really good at arguing, Buck was fairly sure she could win an argument about whether or not the sky was green. Overall it was a good quality, except for the other day when she had convinced him to do her laundry to make up for breaking the stairs. Buck was pretty sure he hadn’t actually broken them, but after 15 minutes of talking to Candy he wasn’t even sure if he knew his own name anymore.

“Come on, you know it takes me longer to get ready than you,” Pepper pleaded.

This was true. When Buck had first met Pepper he wasn’t completely sure if he should refer to her as a she or not. She was definitely biologically male, but hazy memories of secret passwords and underground bars and women like Pepper hastily wiping off their makeup as police sirens wailed in the background taught Buck that maybe there had always been more to gender than just sex. 

“Fine take it,” Candy said as she chucked the mirror at Pepper with more force than necessary and, for a startling moment, Buck was convinced it would break and then they would really have a fight on their hands. But it landed safely in Pepper's manicured hand and Candy got up to dramatically stomp over to Buck. “I’ll just have Jay finish my eyeliner.” 

There was not a lot that The Asset had been trained to do that was applicable to normal civilian life, but he found that his impeccable fine motor skills and hand eye coordination transferred well into other areas. One of them being makeup application.  

Candy plopped down in front of him and shook the tube of black liquid demandingly in his face. He took it without protest.

“Thanks babe, once Pepper is done you can have the mirror all to yourself.”

It was a new past time that he had begun indulging in, just staring at himself in the mirror, sometimes for hours. The novelty of it was astonishing. It had started a little over two weeks ago, before he had even met Candy and Pepper. He had been ambling along with no actual purpose when he had caught his reflection in a discarded mirror and was hit with the blinding realization that he was a _person,_ he was _this_ person. Until that moment he had never considered that fact, always thought of himself as an object, an asset, an it not a he. Buck had always known he was a human, he bled, required nutrients, could kill and be killed, but in that reflection he had seen a man, someone capable of controlling his own actions, his own life. It had been a major mind fuck and was something he was still grappling with.

His gloved left hand was completely steady as he drew a perfect wing with one swipe of the applicator.

“Oooo, you know what they say about ambidextrous people Jay Daddy,” Candy cooed and wiggled her eyebrows.

That was one of the many things that Buck didn’t really understand about conversation. He shared absolutely no familial relationship with either of these women, he knew for certain because he had checked. You could never be too safe when you were an amnesiac that was active in this country around the times when they were conceived. But when he had informed them of the fact that he was not in any way their father and, therefor, it was an inaccurate modifier, they had just laughed and continued to call him that. He didn’t mind though.

“I do not,” he replied in his usual flat monotone.

“Well sugar lets just say its all good things.”

She winked at him than closed her other eye so he could finish with the liner. They both did that, joked with him even though he didn’t get the punchline 90% of the time. It was nice, they treated him like a normal person and excepted his oddities without question.

“Task complete,” he informed her when the lines were acceptably uniform.

“Thanks baby doll, don’t get in too much trouble while we’re gone ok?”

When both girls had finished transforming themselves into the human equivalent of peacocks they headed off to work, each blowing Buck a kiss on their way out. He smiled a little to himself, it was a foreign felling, but one he was trying to experience more often.

\--------------

At around two in the morning there was a clatter that woke Buck from his shallow rest. Moments later Candy came through the door, her arms around Pepper, supporting her as she clutched her face, her hands muffling her sobs. Buck shot to his feet and quickly scooped Pepper into his arms and gently carried her to, then deposited her in, the lone mattress that lay on the floor.

“What happened,” he demanded, unable in inject gentleness into his tone. 

Pepper was too distraught to answer, but Candy piped up, “it was Tommy. He’s angry that she didn’t make as much money as she did last Saturday. Said it was her fault for not working Clayton Street, but there’s cops on Clayton she can’t help that!” 

“Where is he,” Buck questioned in the same demanding voice.

“Sitting in his Corolla on Baxter, but Jay…” she was cut off by Buck turning on his heels, heading straight for the door.

“Wait Jay, you can’t! We need him, he protects us. Without him the clients would do a lot worse that this,” she finished and motioned towards Pepper's quickly bruising eye.

“I’ll protect you,” he said then slammed the door and headed for the street.

The man sitting in the nearly broken down 1996 Corolla was bald headed and slightly overweight. He had a tattoo of a snake coiled around his neck and countless more running down his arms.  Though he appeared to be well over six feet tall and most definitely outweighed Buck, there was no chance he would be able to actually do any damage to him. Tommy looked up from his phone just as Buck smashed through the driver’s side window with his metal hand and pulled him out of the car by his neck. 

“What the fuck,” Tommy shrieked as he reached for the poorly concealed gun in his waistband. Buck released his neck for the two seconds it took to disarm him and smash the pistol in his grip.

“Who the fuck are you,” Tommy yelled accusingly, bits of spittle hitting Buck’s face. “You must be stupid or something cause I ain’t your guy, haven’t pissed anyone off in a long time.”

“You hurt Pepper,” he stated, letting cold furry seep into his words. 

“What the tranny? Why you care, ya fuckin him or something?”

Buck's grip tightened on his neck till the man was gasping for air. He loosened his hold just enough so that Tommy wouldn’t pass out then leaned down to talk directly into his ear. He let a little bit of The Asset's viciousness come through.

“I have killed more people than you have ever met. I have destroyed nations with the hand that is currently around you throat. Leave this neighborhood and never come back. If I even see you within 100 feet of a woman I will make you wish that I had killed you today. You will beg for death and I will not be merciful. Do you understand?” 

Tommy’s face was starting to turn purple, but with an effort he nodded in confirmation. Buck released him and he gasped in heaving lungfuls of breath. As Buck rose to leave a voice rasped out, “why,” followed by ragged coughing.

 “Things that hurt people are bad, things that are bad need to be stopped”

\---------------

Candy lay awake typing notes into the burner phone that Jay had given them whenever he got back from dealing with Tommy, telling them that they were do call him whenever they needed protection. He had also dropped off an actually frozen icepack and some painkillers, patted them both on the head, then slunk off to do whatever it was that Jay did. Pepper was asleep in her lap, they both lay on the shitty stained mattress they had hauled up from a random street corner, the metal springs digging uncomfortably into her back.

She hadn’t heard from Tommy and was pretty sure she wouldn’t be any time soon. He wasn’t tough shit like he thought he was. He was only managing two girls on the side, his main income came from the crack he dealt, but even in that business he was practically a nobody. But that’s what had originally drawn Candy to him, he got her crack for cheap, treated her better than the last guy, and didn’t have the balls to actually kill her if things went sideways. Overall it was a situation she could deal with. But now Jay seemed like he wanted to take over that role, but Jay wasn’t a pimp, Candy knew that from the moment she saw him.

She had first run into Jay about two weeks ago when he had started squatting in the same abandoned apartment her and Pepper were in. Usually Candy didn’t fuck with strange homeless men and would have called Tommy to come kick him out, but she had looked into his eyes and seen herself. Just a lost damaged soul that needed taken care of more than anything else in the world. Plus, he seemed to be significantly more frightened of her than she was of him. He had quickly apologized and was hallway out the window when she yelled at him to stop and stay, if only for the night. They had been together ever since.

Pepper had taken to him right away, trying to make him her new project, she was always trying to fix people. He was strange, not very talkative and when he did speak he expressed emotion through tone sometimes, but always used the same militaristic vocabulary. She figured that he had to be a vet or something. He was crazy loyal too. After the first few days he spent in silence he started bringing the girls things. Meals, cloths, anything they mentioned needing. She didn’t ask where it all came from. He had even given Candy a box of tampons the literal day she started her periods and she really didn’t want to know how he had figured that one out.

So ya, Jay was a little fucked up, a lotta crazy, and probably had more baggage than JFK international, but didn’t they all? In Candy’s line of work you didn’t really look for stable friends, you just looked for kind people, and Jay was most definitely a kind person. So she would let him rough up the guys who didn’t pay, when he would eventually leave her like everyone inevitably did she’d go renegade for a while, eventually find another pimp, guys like Tommy were a dime a dozen. But for now she’d enjoy the good life, make sure Pepper healed up, and just keep on surviving. 

\------------

Buck was wandering around Manhattan waiting for 06:00 to role around when Iosif’s voice shrieked in his head “RETURN FOR DEBREIFING”.  And God dammit he had let himself space out again. It was like there was an autopilot deep within his subconscious that would automatically guide the body to the nearest Hydra base if he let his mind wander and not constantly remind himself of his destination. If he were to get within 500ft of one of these bases Iosif would surge back life and try his damnedest to get Buck to go inside. It always left him with a pounding headache and lack of apatite for the rest of the day. Of course he never really had much of an appetite to begin with.

He had attempted to eat solid foods a handful of times in the past few weeks with varying amounts of success. Peanut butter based desserts were his best bet if he didn’t want to vomit all over the place. He had looked up some of the drugs that Dr. Alston had told him were in his system. At least one of them was a hunger suppressor and Buck figured than maybe it had done some permanent nerve damage because he never really experienced much hunger and had to be reminded to eat by the girls constantly. 

That evil part of the brain that he had since realized wasn’t so evil after all was whispering to him a lot more these days. It wasn’t a separate person’s voice like Iosif’s was, more like a part of himself that had been locked away. He had spent a few days in the library by the apartment reading psychology textbooks and thought that maybe it was what other people called remembering. 

Buck had considered going inside one of the bases just to see what would happen. All the locations in New York had been abandoned and maybe if Iosif realized that he would give up on trying to get him to report in. It seemed unlikely however and the headache only grew in intensity the closer he got, so he tabled that idea.

By the time he was out of range of the facility it was 5:37, so he began to make his way toward the park that Steve took his daily run in. The man way ludicrously easy to track, always maintaining a set schedule and making no attempt to disguise himself when he was out in the open. It was a great way of getting yourself killed and Buck didn’t understand how the man could work for one of the top intelligence agencies in the world without ever having learned the basics of how to not get yourself followed, bugged, and probably eventually fucking shot.

But no matter how much he hated Steve’s ill-advised routines, a part of him enjoyed the fact that, without a doubt, he could always come and watch Steve run in the crisp morning air as the sun slowly rose in the east. It was calming and one of Buck's favorite parts of the day. He wanted to reach out to him, to share more meals together and learn all the things that Steve had to teach him. But it was impossible. Steve worked for SHEILD and if Buck made his presence know Steve would have to take him back to them. Buck couldn't do that, he had just tasted freedom and to go back to a prison might literally kill him. He knew some of what what The Asset had done, knew what _he_ had done and knew prison wasn’t anywhere close to a severe enough punishment for the crimes he had committed. But he couldn’t go back, couldn’t turn himself in, even though part of him desperately wanted to.

Steve slowed to a jog and turned toward him and the direction of the subway entrance. Buck slipped behind a wall and out of sight, listening for the approaching footsteps. Steve passed close enough that Buck could hear his panting breaths, could reach out and touch him if he was so inclined. And his right hand did reach out, trembling with the want of it. But Buck pulled back, silenced himself till Steve was long out of hearing range and turned back to head to the apartment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I used the term "biologically male" in this chapter which is not really accurate terminology and "assigned male at birth" is the proper alternative for that. But Buck having come from the 40s and never being taught any thing but assassanry since then would probably not have access to this information. I choose to use those words because of this, but if anyone is offended I can change it. Just let me know in the comments:)


	5. No Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there is some questionable “science” in this chapter, which pains me, but there is questionable science in every second of every marvel movie so clearly y’all can deal with it.
> 
> Also SAC stands for special agent in charge

Buck was truly deserving of the title of “ghost”. Hundreds of SHIELD agents and Stark industry employees had swarmed the streets of New York mere minutes after he had escaped, but of the seven potential spotting, all had turned out to be false positives. In the 25 days since then they hadn’t been any more successful in their pursuit.  Many believed he had fled the country and they were beginning to widen the search to an international level. Steve held out hope that he hadn’t rejoined Hydra since there had not been any sightings or attacks matching his M.O. Buck was out there somewhere and Steve was going to find him.

It was becoming almost an obsession and Steve was staring to think that maybe Natasha was right and that he had gotten a little too involved. It had escalated to the point that he was losing his mind. The mechanical whir of Buck’s arm kept buzzing in his ear at random times of the day. When he had first begun hearing it he would frantically search around, thinking that maybe Buck had willingly come to him. But once he had realized he was hearing it inside the tower, SHIELD facilities, and other areas that Buck couldn’t possible be, he came to terms with the fact that it was just in his head.

But unlike himself, Buck wasn’t on the top of SHEILD’s priority list, and they were starting to demand that Steve be put back on non Winter Soldier related missions. That’s how he found himself on a cargo plane halfway across the Atlantic. They had gotten a tip about a supposed Hydra hideout in eastern Ukraine that was housing evacuated personnel from other facilities. From the sounds of it there were some pretty high-profile people there so SHEILD was sending in the big guns. Namely Steve, Sam, and Nat. Everyone else was off on other assignments.

The compound they parachuted into was deceivingly quiet. Steve was almost sure it was abandoned till they reached the third underground level and a bullet went whizzing by his face so close that he could feel the heat of it. He jumped back into the hallway they had come from pulling Sam with him. Nat leapt into the rafters signaling that she would take them out from above. Steve provided cover fire and a distraction for the thirty seconds it took her to neutralize the threat and give them the all clear signal. There had only been one shooter.

“Well it’s not empty, but its definitely not the stronghold the intel had suggested,” Sam remarked.

“Should we head out, leave the rest to the other agents,” Steve wondered aloud. This didn’t seem to be a job that required people of their prowess and he was anxious to get stateside again.

“Nah,” Sam disagreed, “killing a couple Hydra fuckers is better than killing no Hydra fuckers. Plus, we still might find something interesting, this isn’t the lowest level.”

He was exactly wrong, but wasn’t exactly right either. On the fifth and lowest level there were around twenty people hunkered down behind, what they had probably presumed to be, an unbreakable door. Steve got through in thirty seconds. And while the personnel weren’t nothing, Steve was still notably disappointed by their lack of numbers. They all seemed to be scientist and administrators, and didn’t put up much of a fight. About half of them did the notorious proclamation of allegiance and subsequent swallowing of fast acting cyanide pills, but the rest surrendered voluntarily.

They were herding them single file out of the compound towards a transport craft when something caught Steve’s eye.

He roughly yanked a thin, brown haired man out of line and commanded, “what is your name?”

The man hesitated, looking upon Steve with contempt and disgust. He held his head high like he was used to looking down at all who spoke to him. Steve repeated himself, a little firmer this time.

“Richard Walright,” came the shrill, somewhat nasally answer.

“Then why does your name tape say Iosif?” Steve nearly snarled.

The man looked almost happy to have been asked. 

“That is a codename, a position, passed down for generations to the most elite officers. A nonbeliever like you would know nothing of the pride I take in my work and my position in this organization. We are tasked with-”

His ideological tirade was cut short by Steve punching him in the face. He then leapt on the man and held him to the ground with a knee pressed to his sternum.

“Were you the Winter Soldiers handler,” he spoke with a calm that disguised his furry and surprised even himself.

A look passed over Richard’s face and he firmly pressed his lips together in a defiant manner. Steve pressed a little more of his considerable weight onto the man and he gasped out a painful cry.

“Steve, what the hell man,” Sam shouted as he ran over and hauled him off the guy.

“I know him Sam! I know what he’s done!”

“Ok, ok,” Sam soothed, “that still doesn’t mean you get to crush his chest in. Not when he’s already detained.”

Steve wasn’t having any of it until Natasha stepped in and put an uncharacteristically gentle hand on his back.

“Steve, the best thing to do is get him back to base unharmed. They won’t let us question him if he’s in the hospital.”

And while that was true he certainly didn’t have to like it. He nodded grudgingly though and hoisted Richard to his feet by the skin of his neck before shoving him into the craft with the rest of the prisoners. Sam nodded at him approvingly then put a hand on his shoulder and walked with him to their seats.

\-------------

When the plane landed back on base they were informed of a briefing that would take place within the hour. Upon arrival Steve saw that Dr. Alston was standing at the head of the conference table and he greeted her warmly. She had left a favorable impression on him and, judging by her strong embrace, the opposite was true as well. When everyone had filed in and found their seats she began the meeting.

“Hello everyone, for those of you who don’t know me I’m Dr. Alston, the lead doctor on Buck’s, or The Winter Soldier’s case. Although he is no longer in my care my team has continued to study the samples we were able to obtain from him earlier this month. I’ve called this meeting to update everyone on what we have found so far.”

She clicked the remote in her hand and a screen flickered to life, displaying a block of text and a picture that had been taken of Buck, strapped to the hospital bed. Steve’s heart lurched and he could taste bile in his throat. In the photo Buck was held down with no less than ten metal and leather bindings, his hair was unkempt and he was purposely avoiding looking into the camera. Looking at the image now, in hindsight, Steve could see that he had done everything wrong. He should have stayed in Buck’s room the entire time, found some other way of restraining him, and convinced him to stay without giving any more orders. All of it was now just one more thing to add to the ever growing list of regrets in his mind.

“By cross referencing antibodies present in his blood stream with flu strains of different time periods we were able to determine time of birth to be sometime between 1905 and 1920,” Alston began.

“Does that mean he really was responsible for all the attacks he’s rumored to have committed,” an agent asked with awe.

“Not necessarily,” SAC Shapero, if Steve remembered correctly, said. “Just because he is old enough doesn’t mean there weren’t others, or that the stories weren’t rumors or exaggerations. What we can confirm, however, is that he was telling the truth when he told Captain Rodgers about being cryogenically frozen." 

“That is correct,” Alston agreed, “it appears that most, if not all, of what he told Captain Rodgers was truthful.”

“So we are now operating under the assumption that what The Soldier has done for Hydra was non-consensual and it is likely that their conditioning has been broken and he will not return to them,” Shapero asserted, “the majority of our recapture efforts will be planned with this in mind.”

“So, will you be able to find out who he is. I mean… who he was, before… all…this,” Steve finished with a vague wave of his hand.

Alston answered softly, “he is of German and Irish heritage and appears to have been raised, if not born in, the United States. We’ve run his DNA though police databases to see if we could find any living relatives, but so far, no luck. Our current theory, based on historical accounts, is that he was captured by the soviet’s during the Second World War. Unfortunately, there were more than 78,000 U.S. troops that went missing in action during that time, so unless we get a hit from the DNA databases, or uncover Hydra files with more information, it is unlikely we will be able to identify him.”

Steve’s stomach gave another violent role and he could feel the color draining from his face. Buck had fought in _his_ war. They had been comrades, compatriots, brothers in arms. They had fought and bled and watched friends die on the same battlefields. Grew up in the same time, watched the same movies. It was all too much to process, but luckily Steve had a lot of experience dealing with the unfathomable. He consciously forced himself to settle down and get through the meeting before losing it.

“We’ve run some simulations and based on our findings we are about 95% certain that he would have survived the withdrawal symptoms,” Alston continued, “it’s difficult to predict what actions he would take afterwards because we have only been able to observe his behavior under the influence of the drugs.”

Shapero added, “we’re pretty much searching in the dark on this one. Typically, when tracking someone down we have known affiliations, people they work for, relatives, and an established pattern of conduct. But with him, we got nothing. Because we have so little to go on and he doesn’t seem to be causing any trouble for us I’ve decided to downgrade the importance of this retrieval mission.”

Shapero straightened and added an air of gravity to his words, “this is a tipping point ladies and gentlemen, we have already crippled them and if we are able to maintain our relentless attacks on Hydra we may be able to eradicate them completely. I expect every single person in this room to be focusing their efforts on the greater good, and act accordingly to the mission that takes the most precedence, namely destroying the organization that would wipe us, and millions of innocent people of the face of the earth if given the chance. Am I understood?”

Everyone agreed forcefully, with maybe the exception of Steve who, though understanding the sentiment and acknowledging the truth of his words, couldn’t just move on from perusing Buck. Especially after all he had learned today. But he would comply with orders, arrange his priority list as stated, and maybe just look around on his down time, no one could really blame him for that, could they?

\--------

“Pepper... _Pepper_ ,” Buck called repeatedly, his voice barely above a whisper. She finally awoke and he held her down with his right hand so she wouldn’t rise and wake Candy, who was sleeping quite deeply judging by the drool on her pillow. On the rare occasion that he touched the girls he always did it with his right hand, the left was just too dangerous.

“What is it Jay Daddy” she asked through a yawn, the swelling on her face from days prior having already receded. 

“I am leaving for a few days. Please don’t go out working when I am gone. There is enough cash and rations under the floor board to last a week.” 

She looked at him with a glimmer of worry in her eye.

“Okay Jay, I’ll tell Candy. Are you in any trouble? This doesn’t have to do with Tommy does it?”

“Negative.”

“Okay, but promise me you’ll be safe won’t you baby doll?”

Buck considered this for a moment. While lying to Pepper was a terrible option, making her worry somehow seemed even worse. 

He must have sat there deliberating for longer than was socially acceptable because Pepper gave a heavy sigh and offered, “just be as careful as you can manage hun, you know me and Candy’s phone number if there’s anything we can help with. We care about you, ya know that right Jay?”

“Confirm,” he agreed with feeling, then turned for the door.

“And bring me back a suitcase surprise,” Pepper called after him in a lighthearted voice.

Buck allowed himself to smile. 

\-------------

Buck slunk through the darkened base with virtual silence. This was his first op, if you could call it that, since his time with Steve. Until now he had been playing a game of catch up when it came to Hydra. He was not able to recall any important information and had been getting all his intel from following Steve and breaking into SHEILD files. Since he didn’t happen to have any spare jets laying around like they did, Buck had never gotten the opportunity to raid a base before The Avengers and company had already got to it. That was until yesterday when he suddenly recalled this facility in northern Maine with absolute clarity. Buck didn’t know how he new about it, didn’t have any memories of actually being there, but he new the layout of the entire compound as well as his own apartment.

To the untrained eye it looked like an empty warehouse, but there were miles of underground corridors and rooms hidden beneath the rundown façade. It had the potential of housing up to a thousand Hydra staff. But unfortunately Buck had very little up to date information on the facility other than its layout, and even that could have been altered since his last visit. Maybe it had even been abandoned for decades. He checked one of the control panels disguised as a seam in the wall and there was definitely power running to the building, and a lot of it. 

Just then three double wide garage doors opened and fleet of military transport vehicles and oversized SUVs rode in. There were 10 cars in total and when the doors closed behind them people started pouring out. Buck counted 23 men from his hiding spot, not including the drivers and any personnel left in the cars. Most were heavily armed and and suited up for combat. As one of the SUVs pulled forward Buck got a glimpse at the characters written on the side of the largest transport vehicle. They appeared to be a random assortment of numbers and letters, but he _knew_ that label, the same way he had known the location of this base. And while he wasn’t able to say what was exactly inside, it was most definitely a weapon, one designed with mass destruction in mind. 

He _needed_ to remove that particular instrument from Hydra’s possession. What if they aimed it at New York? At Candy? At Pepper? At Steve? That was completely out of the question and Buck would personally end the life of every single man and woman in this compound to make sure it didn’t happen. But there were over two dozen armed guards with a hard on for killing down there and an unknown number waiting just beneath their feet. Brute strength wasn’t the way to handle this op, no matter how much Buck might want it to be. So he made a decision, arguable a very ill advised decision, but one based on the fact that Iosif had remained suspiciously silent since his arrival, and the hope that it would remain that way.

Every single gun in the room swiveled to point at him as he stepped from the shadows directly into view of the armored fleet.

 A couple trigger happy obvious newbies actually got a few poorly aimed shots off before a suited man leapt from the lead vehicle and screamed, “hold your fire! Hold your fire you absolute fucking morons!”

Buck didn’t recognize him, but he was clearly in charge so he turned to him and said, “Reporting for debriefing,” in the Russian that The Asset always reverted to when mission didn’t go as planned. 

“Soldier, speak in English,” the lavishly dressed man ordered and he repeated himself, this time in English.

A smile spread across the man’s face and he half whispered, “I am so going to get a promotion for this,” before whipping out his phone and hastily typing out a message.

“Change of plans,” he announced to the uneasy looking men, “half of you store the equipment as planned, the other half come with me and the soldier down to containment.”

They looked around at each other in tense silence, none wanting to be locked in an enclosed area with The Winter Soldier for any length of time.

The leader approached him and ordered, “disarm yourself and follow me.”

Buck did as was told and soon they were in a service elevator jerkily descending into the bowels of the facility. The guards encircling him were visibly agitated and all had their index fingers resting fully on the triggers of their guns. While Buck’s mind stayed calm, the plates of his left arm began shifting impatiently, the promise of violence awakening it from its slumber. The only person unaware of the tension in the air was the leader. He was not a fighter, did not know a demon when he saw it, like the other men.

When they reached the third floor the doors opened and Buck was lead through a very dirty, very run down looking hallway. There were no lights illuminating the many rooms they passed and he could not see or hear any other people, even with his heightened senses. It was as optimal of a situation as he could hope for. He would take out these men while they were separated from the others, in close quarters where their assault rifles were least effective, then find the rest, kill them, and steal the weapon before they unloaded it. What he would actually do with it he’d figure out later. Maybe just drop it off outside of Stark tower, watch the reactions of Steve and the other Avengers when they found it. That would be a sight he’d pay money to see.   

A radio crackled to life and frantic voice rattled off the codes for, intruders spotted and assistance required immediately. Everyone in the corridor turned to face Buck and some raised their weapons. Buck stared forward with a blank, neutral expression, trusting in the brass arrogance of their commander to not kill him. His gamble was rewarded when the leader raised the radio to his mouth and scoffed, “let them try to fuck with us, we have The Soldier back.”

This situation was a little less ideal. On the one hand now Buck had allies to help neutralize the enemy, but on the other the likelihood that they would recognize him as an ally was small. He was deliberating on the best way to communicate to the intruders that he was on their side, while remaining in the Hydra ranks long enough to eliminate them, when elevator doors opened and all his plans flew out the window. Clear gray-blue eyes met his own from across the room and the actually not so evil part of his brain whispered, “ _friend Steve!”_ Buck hesitated for only a moment, winked at Steve, then turned to the nearest Hydra agent and gave the mechanical arm what it wanted.


End file.
